Their implication that her 9/11 swooning episode caught on video is fake news and that numerous physicians, including me, were bots controlled by Russia producing and spreading “fake news” when we questioned the former secretary of State’s health is preposterous on its face. Russia did not make her use a private server or make all the other decisions that doomed her quest for the presidency. Those were not “fake news” stories.

It is more than probable that Russia participated in a propaganda campaign — nothing new there. That game has been played by both sides since 1946. Remember the “United States Information Agency,” “Voice of America” and “Radio Free Europe”? The technology has changed from radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped from airplanes to the cyber world. It’s newer, certainly more effective technology, but the same game with the same players. Both sides have tried to influence the thinking of the other’s populace for a long time.

America stood by while he invaded Crimea and sponsored a proxy war in Eastern Ukraine. We diddle while Putin reassembles the old Soviet State. We backed down in Poland. We alienate Israel. We pulled out of a relatively stable Iraq and created the vacuum being filled by ISIS. We have botched Libya, Syria, Iran, Turkey and the Philippines. Russia is benefiting by all those missteps. The list goes on. Our standing in the world has been diminished and Russia’s has been enhanced.

Regardless, The Washington Post seems incapable of acknowledging that Clinton lost the election because she and the Democrats erected a brick wall she could not get over. The following “bricks” were all created by them, not by the Russians or by Trump and the Republicans.

Clinton was an uninspiring and mechanical candidate with very negative “likability ratings” who ran a terrible campaign despite raising and spending huge amounts of money.

She spent more time fundraising than campaigning.

She disappeared from the campaign trail down the stretch for extended periods of time.

She hid from the press (and therefore the public).

She and her campaign did not pick up on the impending problems in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan and foolishly spent resources in Arizona and other places that ultimately didn’t matter.

She exuded an attitude that she “deserved” the presidency because of her gender and just because she was a Clinton.

Her ties to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs and her refusal to release her speech transcripts lost her some voters.

Her ties to globalism ran counter to the populist, nationalistic mood occurring throughout the West.

Her contrived and condescending Southern drawl and “black accent” when appearing in the South, especially when addressing black audiences, was noticed and not appreciated.

She tied her wagon to the Obama legacy in a year when voters obviously wanted change.

She was the ultimate insider in a year the voters wanted to throw all the bums out.

She embraced the Black Lives Matter movement while distancing herself from law enforcement.

The private meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport right before the FBI report about her email server and classified documents was viewed as inappropriate.

FBI Director James Comey put the cherry on top of the whole mess — but she created that mess.

For the liberal Kool-Aid-drinking folks at The Washington Post to invoke the Russians and not credit all the stuff above for her defeat is further proof that they are in total denial. Clinton and the Democrats own this result, not Putin. The real “fake news” this cycle appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times and on MSNBC and CNN.

Only a bad candidate with a bad message badly delivered could lose to someone like Trump, but Clinton pulled it off.

John R. Coppedge is a retired general surgeon living in Longview Texas.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.